They are in an ocean race where they're 10-ish nm's offshore. They are approaching the ONLY local danger of some ISLANDS which are in a grouping wihin several miles. The only visible light on the cluster is on SOUTH Coronado Island, which is not that far from NORTH Coronado Island (their "ultimate" last stop).

What conceivable scale would you have your chart plotter set at? Not 1/4 mile or so -- you'd have it on 10 miles or 5 miles or even 3 miles as you approached the Islands. That would be between and hour and 30 minutes notice.

Just doesn't make any sense. IF THEY HAD BEEN LOOKING AT A CHART PLOTTER WHILE THEY WERE SAILING, they'd be alive today. The person at the helm had no situational awareness. Before the watch changed, the issue of the ONLY hazzards ahead (the ISLANDS) had to have been a consideration that would have either been discussed or looked over.

http://www.panbo.com/assets_c/2012/04/Aegean_4-27_courtesy_Newport_Beach_Patch_Susan_Hoffman-thumb-465x396-5546.jpg WHAT'S THAT THING ON THE BINNACLE? A radar, or chartplotter, or both? TURN THE FUCKING THING ON AND LOOK AT IT OCCASIONALLY. (It's one thing not to have instruments, but to have them and not use them isn't going to be rewarded by St. Peter's question about what brought you here?)

I (like you, Larry) have had "oh shit" moments. (e.g., in narrow passages where there is ledge that I should have focused on (it was there, but I was watching lobster pots and not paying attention to the drift...)

But if you hit the first of a bunch of Islands....

Really sad -- but really inexplainable as anything but a very, very, bad series of errors. Having radar at the helm, a chart plotter up there, keeping your eyes open, listening, and looking at ANY chart that shows you were you are and where you are going. Even turning the helm over and doing a 180 when the water starts to give you a signal that things are changing rapidly, whatever....

My UNFOUNDED, SPECULATIVE GUESS. The "watch" went to sleep and stayed that way for over an hour while the autopilot drove into the island. Either that or someone got engrossed in a book, or something similar.